Collected Poems 1912-1944

By H.D. and LOUIS L. EDITED BY: MARTZ

Book Overview

Of special significance are the "Uncollected and Unpublished Poems (1912-1944)," the third section of the book, written mainly in the 1930s, during H. D.'s supposed "fallow" period. As these pages reveal, she was in fact writing a great deal of important poetry at the time, although publishing only a small part of it. The later, wartime poems in this section form an essential prologue to her magnificent Trilogy (1944), the fourth and culminating part of this book. Born in Pennsylvania in 1886, Hilda Doolittle moved to London in 1911 in the footsteps of her friend and one-time fianc Ezra Pound. Indeed it was Pound, acting as the London scout for Poetry magazine, who helped her begin her extraordinary career, penning the words "H. D., Imagiste" to a group of six poems and sending them on to editor Harriet Monroe in Chicago. The Collected Poems 1912-1944 traces the continual expansion of H. D.'s work from her early imagistic mode to the prophetic style of her "hidden" years in the 1930s, climaxing in the broader, mature accomplishment of Trilogy. The book is edited by Professor Louis L. Martz of Yale, who supplies valuable textual notes and an introductory essay that relates the significance of H. D.'s life to her equally remarkable literary achievement.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811209717
• ISBN13: 9780811209717
• Release Date: February 1986
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 2.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The Perfect Ship still missing ONE Mast!

The only way to improve upon this volume would be to include "Helen in Egypt" in the next edition. Then it would be truly complete, and truly perfect, fit to sail unto the unfix-ed Stars!

A Fantastic Collection

This book, bringing together all of H.D.'s poetry from her Imagist beginnings to her wartime "Trilogy," is a must have. For those who (like me) are novices with respect to modernist poetry, this presents a fantastic introduction. H.D.'s images have a richness and depth that I have not found elsewhere. Subject (poet as person) and object (metaphorical image) are so closely interwoven that one is instantly captivated by her presentations. This is particularly true of her use of Greek mythology - she resurrects ancient symbols in her own voice. Many of her images are simply breathtaking in their energy, depth, and beauty. This books is an essential read.

H.D.: The Essential Imagist

For lovers of modernist literature, this tome is a must. Including her first published book and covering the period until (and through) her astounding achievement in her war Trilogy, the Collected Poems allows a reader to fully get to know H.D. in all her many moods. Also including poetry from the period in which she was undergoing psychoanalysis with Freud, the poems give a full picture of H.D.'s talent and life. H.D. is a poet to be read with all the other, better known modernists: T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, et. al. Her beautiful work ranges from her early imagist work to her more visionary, mythic poem cycles contained in the final part of her Collected Poems, in Trilogy. Breathtaking.